A plea for more planes in the sky – in this environmentally conscious age?
Yes, and I make no apologies for it. Here’s why.

West Africa (all of Africa) is in dire need of jobs. That requires, among many other things, economic growth. Where’s that going to come from? From Africa. Fortress Europe is grappling with a crisis, as is the US. Asia is selling more to Africa than vice versa, the Americas are distant friends at best.

And as we have seen earlier, aid doesn’t work.

So what’s left? This: we need to start doing some very serious business - right here.

For this you must be able to move around. And there’s the rub: we have no infrastructure. The majority of the roads that carry people, goods, money, are in an appalling condition. Take Dakar-Bamako by bus. That’s two days on the road, including a slow border crossing, a dodgy night a Malian bus station and long stretches of road on the Senegalese side where the maximum speed is that of a horse-drawn cart. If you drive a lorry, bring cash to pay off the bent traffic coppers.

Two days. Meanwhile: flying time from Dakar to Bamako? One hour. And €300. Yes, you read that right.

Here’s another one. Another one. Abidjan – Ouagadougou. Lovely train ride, I have done it myself. But the tracks are so old that the average speed on this 1100-plus kilometre stretch is…28km/hr. Don’t forget to include the long delays at the border.

Again: two days. Flying time from Abidjan to Ouaga? One hour thirty minutes. And hundreds of euros.

It does not stop there. Often you can’t travel at night. Bandits. Very often you must pay at the roadblocks that litter this region. Pickpockets in uniform. Some years ago I once crossed from Sierra Leone into Liberia with four Ivorians who did not speak English. The Sierra Leonean border guards, police, customs, immigration officials and whoever else robbed them of an amount that would have almost covered the price of an air ticket.

“Almost”. Because flying in this region is criminally expensive. Round trip from Dakar to Yaoundé, Cameroon? One thousand euros. Dakar to Monrovia? Almost €900. My friend who joined me on my Liberia trip paid less flying in...from Brussels.

The things you have to endure in order to get to the next country, visit family, friends, do business would kill most Westerners reading this. It will take a lot of time to build the infrastructure that has made travelling in Europe such a walk in the park. And until such a time, flying is the alternative. Putting this option beyond the reach of, say, 95% of the people is quite simply, criminal.

It’s going to be hard but we really must get rid of the regulation, which protects the numerous under-scale, top-heavy and mostly state-run monopolies of the kind that got destroyed in Europe in the 1990s. We need a bunch of no-frills, low-cost airlines and we need them fast. Business in Bamako? A €150 round trip is doable. Meeting in Abidjan? For €200 you’ll have loads of takers. No hassles, no delays, no bribes to pay, no fear of bandits and I haven’t even mentioned accidents...

Hello easyjet, Kingfisher, Kulula.com, Southwest? Your new market is here.